Distortion and Delirium: Echo vs Hiro Mashima
A hollow screamed as it was cut in half. A tall man in a long black cloak stood over the remains in disgust. "The captain of the Kido Corps sent to do such menial tasks like killing hollows. Unbelievable." ''Hiro had been sent to the human world to try and scope out some kind of "new threat" but all he had found there was worthless hollows. The man sighed and began to look around for more signs of spiritual activity. Meanwhile, a mere block away, a don of a secret Soul Society mafia sat at his desk, muscular brutes all around him. He had recently hit the jackpot, taking ownership of a large spiritual drug facility that was on the verge of cracking the greatest formula ever created, only known to the ranks of the Bara Murasaki. Suddenly a strong, bonechilling, breeze swept through the large office. ''Ding! The elevator was on their top floor. It opened, an eerily black fog creeping out. For a split of a second, a pair of horrifying black and green eyes shone in the black abyss. "Who's there?!" The don demanded. But rather than a hideous monster, a young man stepped out, not with horrific eyes, but quite breathtaking crystal clear deep blue eyes. "...Hahahaha!!! The Bara sent you? Some helpless punk? It's hilarious." The black haired teen wasn't laughing. "Boys, kill him." Replied the confident mobster. They all surrounded him, four to one. Finally one took a swing at him with his brass knuckles. The stranger instantly caught his elbow with his arm at a ninety-degree angle, using his other hand to brutally snap it in two. He used the detached arm to spear its owner in the throat with an out spurred bone. Following up with a roundhouse kick that sent the next henchmen's nose bone into his skull. He walked inbetween the two remaining terrified bodyguards, smashing their temples in at post Mach speeds. He finally reached the don, who shivered in terror. "P-Please...Don't hurt me!" He pleaded, falling backwards out of his chair and out of the tinted window behind him. This wouldn't do, the assailant needed to wipe the don's mind for information. He appeared over the falling man, grabbing his throat and corrupting the man until his face started to disentigrate, the assailants own eyes taking on the previously mentioned green and black glow. The don's body thudded against the ground, The young man stepping lightly off his corpse. He brushed his coat off and started to blend in with the crowd. Hiro sensed a disturbance. He quickly took one of the five staffs he had on back out, and gazed through it's single floating eye. He saw one singular figure among a crowd that had a substantial amount of reiryoku. "Hmph. Either he's surpressing his energies or he's really that weak." thought Hiro inquisitively. He returned his staff to it's place on his back and approached the person. He noticed the figure following him, so Echo walked into an alleyway, stopping without turning around. Hiro smiled. No normal human should be able to notice him outside of his gigai. He drew a staff that had a demon head-like top and followed the bot into the alleyway. Echo turned around, glancing sideways at the man with his casual mask of apathy. "And just who might you be?" "Who are you?" mimicked Hiro. He didn't like giving his name out to those that he considered weaker than him. This man was no exception. He put the demon's head staff back in it's place and pulled out a staff wich seemed to be shaped like a trident. A quick change of mind. He felt that this staff would be better suited for the narrow alley. "I don't have the time or patience to play word games with some armored sadist." Echo turned around, resuming his former pace. Hiro frowned beneath his scarf. "Who are you?" repeated Hiro. With another sudden change of mind he switched back to his demon head staff. He was unsure of what to use incase things got....unfriendly. "Until it concerns you, my name won't be mentioned. "Farewell." He walked away from the older man. Hiro used shunpo to appear in front of the young man. His stubborness was unwavering. "Who are you?" he repeated for the third time. Echo often disguised his warnings, and this man had already went beyond it. Echo's eyes burned a demonic green, visible creatures in unparalled agony screaming for mercy within their illustrious core. His gaze burned with power, rapidly melting Hiro's mask where his focus was centered. "This is your chance to walk away, use it wisely. Hiro quickly removed his scarf and hood revealing a messy mop of blue hair with a matching set of eyes, and a strange tatoo. "Watch your wandering eye, young one." warned Hiro as he pulled an arm back and threw a punch at Echo. "I assure you, my age has no rule over me, I have seen things in my few years that many live an entire life without seeing." He brushed the man's punch to the side with a thrust,, spinning around and directing a powerful kick to his opponent's head. Hiro grabbed his foot with his free hand, turned, and threw Echo against a wall. "But you lack expierience because of your age. And, I assure you, that I do not." said Hiro as he made a lung at Echo with his staff. Echo landed on his feet, flipping over the staff to draw his sword in mid air, using its sharp ridges to tear apart Hiro's shoulder joint. "If that's so, then you have much more to lose than myself." Echo landed behind him, waiting. Hiro grabbed the staff with his free hand as he tightened the wrapping around his new wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding. "Otakebi!" he shouted as he fired an unatural purple flame from the mouth of his staff. Echo noticed the demonic energy of the flames as he held his hand out, corrupting them until they were swallowed in ancient energy. "You must be with the Society, you reek of it's pathetic grip." Hiro gave a bit of an annoyed look. He was being under estimated by a teenager. He pulled out a staff that had three silver rings in it. "Kagami!" shouted Hiro as he split into two, evenly dividing his power between himself and his clone. The clone held out one hand and Hiro did the same. "Hado 31: Shakkaho!" they both yelled in unision as they fired two large fireballs at Echo. Echo ran up the alley wall and averted the blasts, slicing the wall on his way down, corrupting it. Hiro looked at the boy with curiosity. Who was this teenager who was able to stand up to a captain without even releasing his zanpakuto? Hiro pulled out a trident like staff. "Kiono!" he shouted as the centyer branch of the staff begun to charge with energy and the two side branches had large golden wings sprout from their sides. one of the Hiros disapated as the real one charged at Echo, axe in hand. Echo put his hand on the corrupted wall, waiting for Hiro to make the wrong move. With a swoosh Hiro appeared behind Echo and held out one hand. "Bakudo 9: Geki" he said as Echo became envelouped in a red light and became paralized. He took on step, and with a shift of his weight he took a large chop at Echo with his axe. Inevitably the light shone even on the tainted wall, giving it the power to slowly corrupt its eergies, allowing Echo to disable it right on time. He sidestepped, but still took a slash on the tip of his shoulder. He didn't have to feel the pain, instead using his momentum to arial off the wall and palm Hiro's face with a massive amount of force, thrusting pinpoint enough to strike Hiro's brain with his own nose bone. Hiro lowered his head slightly and let Echo's palm to hit his forehead. Ignoring the headache he now had, he grabbed Echo's and held his own open palm up to Echo's face. "Hado 88: Hiryugekizokushintenraiho!" Hiro fired a massive beam of blue electricity from his palm square in Echo's face, the explosion consuming them both. When the ensuing smoke cleared, Echo's coat was ripped up and his face had several slash marks and bleeding burns on it, but Kaosu's power was involuntarily healing him, something that made him extremely lightheaded. Looking lower, it could be seen that Echo's Kaosu blade was impaled into Hiro's stomach. He ripped it out along with pieces of flesh within its ridges and jumped backwards, now seeing double. "It seems you've provoked my first seal to release. Bring Forth My Subjects, Kaosu." Suddenly three green seals encoded with an ancient text appeared around him, the first seal soon releasing in a glory of dark aura. Along with it, Echo's blade seemed to lose more than half of its glowing markings, causign it to radiate with the energy of the creature that called Echo its home. Hiro manipulated his own reiatsu and cauterized the wound. "Is this your shikai?" he asked, trying to get a bit of information from Echo. "That right isn't it, the Society doesn't know a thing about my abilities since I left, considering I destroyed my archives. Though I assure you, they all remember what happened a few years ago." Echo sighed. Hiro became curious. "You were in the soul society?" he asked. After he defeated Echo he would have to make a report. Hiro returned his staff to his back and took a seat on the ground. "And what is a child like yourself doing in the human world?" One other thing ocurred to Hiro. "And maybe you'd like to move this fight to the air? I don't appreciate the extra hollows that you're creating for me to clean up." Hiro was referring to the people that Echo had killed earlier. Such vile and disgusting people would definately turn into hollows. "Well?" Echo was still radiating from hsi release. "If we must continue such a barbaric event, then do what you must." "Barbaric? YTou are the only barbarian I see here. I asked you a simple question and you turned it into an all-out war." said Hiro, obviously forgetting that he was the one that had started the fight. "And since you seem to know so much about the soul society." Hiro calmly walked over to the radiating teen. "You must know about the limit that is put on shinigami when they enter the human world, correct?" he asked in a cocky tone. "Of course, the fools cannot control their power on their own, it's quite pathetic." Responded Echo, now losing interest. Hiro took the insult harshly and grabbed Echo by the throat. "Limit release!" An invisible seal on Hiro's body became visible and he gained an aura of his own, purple in color. He threw Echo far up into the air. "Let's go." he stated plainly as he himself took off in the air after Echo. Echo flipped as he flew upwards far above the buildings in the city. He tossed his torn overcoat off, slashign through it to corrupt it, somehow turning the bisected clothing into two shadow fiends that sprouted wings and swarmed Hiro. Meanwhile, Echo had whirled around and slashed the atmosphere, using his created rift to become a corruptive sky creature that flew to attack the already half-devoured Hiro. Hiro grinned at the boy. "Hado 31: Shakkaho!" he shouted as his hand began to blur. Hiro fired a small meteor shower of flame at the creatures, disintegrating them. No matter how you enhance it, cloth is still cloth. He quickly pulled out a fan-like staff. "Senpuu!" The creature was engulfed in a large tornado. Hiro gave Echo a look as if to say "Is that all?" Echo's eyes remained careless as he folded his arms, blade still in hand. "Your confidence is negated by your lack of discipline." He held his hand out towards the breeze, waiting. Hiro raised an eyebrow. "I have confidence because I have faith in my abilities as a stratigest and a fighter." Hiro appeared in front Echo. "Your apathy is a mask you created to hide your despair, isn't that right?" Hiro trained his eyes on Echo, waiting for the slightest sign of hesitance or ignorance to make his move. With a glance to the side, Hiro was bombarded by a spiritually infused dragon-like minion composed of gales, roughly fifty feet long. It shot a cyclone blast from his mouth that had the spiralling force to shred Hiro into pieces. Hiro pointed his staff and one hand at cyclone. "Senpuu! Hado 58: Tenran!" The two new whirlwinds that Hiro had created collided with the cyclone. The two winds were spinning in the opposite direction and effectively canceled each other. Hiro pulled out his trident like staff. "Kiono!" he shouted and he regained his axe, now with larger blades and a brighter color. Echo seemed to grip something in the air and held it behind his back, assuming patience. Without using shunpo, Hiro dashed towards Echo at a relatively slow pace. He was wary knowing that Echo was waiting for something, he needed to figure out what. "It's amazing how things of this natural world can be corrupted so easily to affect us spiritual beings." Echo held his hand out, cringing some sort of condensed energy within it. He dared Hiro to come any closer. "Oh?" Hiro stopped in his tracks and pointed one finger at Echo. "Hado 1: Sho." Despite the lack of an incantation, Echo was propelled very far away from Hiro. "Hado 54: Haien!" he shouted and with a large chopping motion with his axe he sent a large purple disc flying at Echo. Echo calmly stopped the flying motion and flicked a dose of the energy at the disc, sending it straight downwards to obliterate a city block below. "By now you should know that this energy is merely a corrupted form of an earhtly element." Hiro frowned as the disc incinerated the ground below. More work for him. "Maybe I should finish this quickly." Hiro appeared on the ground directly below Echo, now a large crater in the ground. He pulled out all five of his staffs and stuck them in the ground in front of him. "Bankai! Ibitsu Akumu Kokudo! Matenrou!" he screamed. The ground below Hiro became sludgey and begn to swirl around Hiro at a quickening pace. Hiro stood still as he waited for Echo to make a move. Echo cut his arm slightly, drawing blood which he touched with the mysterious energy, causing to become trillions of pounds heavier. The drop of blood flew downwards, a heat wave forming behind it as flew straight down towards Hiro with surprising force. "Hmph." the ground below Hiro shot over him creating a large dome. Echo's wave hit the dome and it cracked. The crack instantly sealed up. A short burst in spiritual pressure could be sensed as several large spikes shot from the dome, all pinpointed on vital spots in Echo's body. Inside the dome Hiro grinned. He couldn't wait for Echo to dodge the attack. "I suppose I'll have to tell you, I am corrupting and manipulating gravity." He flicked a few teardrops of gravity at the spikes, increasing their weight a trillionfold to instantly shoot downwards and obliterate the dome. As the spikes hit the dome they turned into a grey liquid color and seeped off the dome and back into the ground. Hiro was busy inside the dome, creating an intricate series of pillars and layers of rock, soil, and cement. Hiro was too busy solidifying his defenses to hear what Echo had to say. Echo sighed and shot a small blast of corrupted gravity at the dome, completely erasing its weight so that it floated helplessly into the air along with Hiro. Hiro frowned and deactivated matenrou. The dome began to crack apart and revealed a disgruntled man. He plucked the demon's head staff from the ground and a small purple orb appeared in it's mouth. "Otakebi!" Instead of the usual flame attack, a large purple beam fired from the mouth and was surging with electricity. Hiro was begining to despise Echo and his non-chalant attitude. Echo held his arm out and braced himself, corrupting the beam when it came in contact. But such was easier said than done, as it sent him flying backwards, nearly reaching orbit before slowing down. He focused on controlling the wild energy, gripping it and slowly bringing to his sword's blade. Upon success, his blade was engulfed in a thick layer of purple energy outlined in an electric discharge. He turned back towards Hiro, now pointing at him with his accursed sword. Hiro quickly became enraged and sent another, much larger, beam at Echo. It seemed that the angrier he got, the stronger his flames became. Hiro was oblivious to this fact while he focused on killing Echo. Echo vanished in a burst of speed, and it could be asssumed where he was heading. Hiro landed on the ground. "I DONT' NEED TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!" he screamed and created a large orb of purple flame around him. With a wave of his hand the orb began expanding and disintegrating everything it touched. "DIE!" Echo appeared roughly fifty feet behind Hiro, and with a point of a finger fired a small wisp into the wave of energy. "It's almost time." He said to himself. The heat inside the dome was nearly unbearable. Regardless, he kept expanding. The stench of flesh burning and buildings crumbling filled the air as the dome picked up speed and began destroying the city. Echo kept getting further and further away tonacoid the risk of getting scaulded, but he continued firing small wisps into several points in the expanding dome. Slowly it's color mingled with deep black, and a green aura emitted from it. "I see you're quite the fool, after your previous statement of not wanting anymore work." He raised his voice. Hiro growled and the orb expanded at devastating speed. It was more like an explosion than an attack. He was begining to get badly burned from his own attack, but pressed on anyway with the intent of killing Echo. Echo held his ground, some of his skin peeling as he was driven back, Hiro hadn't noticed the corruption taking root in his attack, so Echo plunged his arm into the energy, getting burned yet he was able to ignite the corruption that lay dormant in the wave, completely dispersing the explosion. Echo panted as steam flew off of his body. He took a deep breath and resumed his stature. Hiro pointed one finger at Echo. "Bakudo 44: Tsumentaikawa!" a small blue beam hit Echo and cemented him in a shell of his own condensed reiryoku. Hiro began to draw three stars very slowly. This would be his final attack. For a mere instance Echo smirked, if this attack dealt enough damage his second seal would release, and if by chance it hit his heart, he would skip straight to his final form. Hiro stuck his arm through the stars and they began spinning, gathering silver electricity to a speck that resided right above the end star. "You know, I made this kido myself." said Hiro, somewhat proud he ahd made such a powerful technique. "Impressive, would you mind showing me through example?" Replied Echo, faking curiosity. Hiro smiled. "Gladly." he pointed the speck at Echo. "The moon's dominance over stars in an unforgiving sky! Let all who witness it's glory be enlightened! Shine upon us! Hado 94: Mitsukaiho!" The speck shot out, colliding with Echo. The shockwave from the explosion alone blasted Hiro away. He gave a small smirk. There was no way that Echo could've survuved that attack. "You're more than lucky." Said Echo as the smoke revealed him, impaled, an inch away from his heart. "But I suggest you leave, my second seal must release for me to live, and there is no way you'll survive." He warned as his second seal began to fade. "This is your only warning." Hiro deactivated his bankai. "Ok, goodbye." Hiro turned and began to slowly walk away. He could've fought for longer, but he had enough information to make an extensive report to the captain commander. Hiro gave a small chuckle thinking about how a snobby teenager had beaten him in a fight. Echo nodded and vanished, leaving to release his form. "Hmph!" Was Hiro's last word as he disapeared through the senkaimon gate. Such an abrupt end to their fight, Hiro was severely disapointed. He had expected Echo to come after him, or at least silense him or capture him, something of the sort. He shrugged it off as he entered the soul society. He had lied allready, one more wouldn't hurt. "Captain Hiro Mashima reporting in. Mission: Unsucessful." Hiro returned to his quarters and began thinking about what he had just done. "''I'll find you boy. I'll find you..."''And with that, Hiro drifted off to sleep.